ABSTRACT
This volume attempts to illustrate how the construct of burden can be used as a prism to both problematise issues related to education and also to explore multiple ways of addressing them. Hitherto, the education system has been segmented with different educational and administrative bodies serving the interrelated sectors of curriculum, teacher education and examination. While various reforms and policies have brought about changes in each of these sectors, transformation of the system vis-à-vis inclusion has not been possible. An integrated and cohesive understanding of learning and a common vision and effort to reduce burden in a comprehensive and concerted manner is needed for enabling systemic transformation. The notion that the system cannot let go of “control” is widespread as seen from the time of the Chaturvedi Committee that studied the feasibility of implementing the recommendation of the Learning without Burden report to the current NEP 2020. Even as the NEP 2020 recommends a “light but tight” regulation, the discourse is one of developing governance and monitoring mechanisms at different levels of educational engagement, managing teachers and teaching through accountability measures. The “burden” on teachers is as pernicious and has to be recognised in the context of a potential transformation. Equally important are epistemic understandings through field level engagements for inclusive curriculum and pedagogic practices. As has been pointed out by the LwB report and NCF 2005, examination reforms are a sine-qua-non for transforming the education system in the country. The burden on learning is heavily determined by high-stakes examinations. This certainly needs to change. Besides systemic reforms through curricular imagination and systems of assessment and evaluation, acknowledging the critical space of teachers is needed. Teachers need to be trusted and provided freedom to develop, discuss and exercise vibrant pedagogic spaces so as to emerge as participants in systemic reforms and contribute as agents of social transformation.424
